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User talk:Robin Patterson
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But most importantly, have fun! :) Happy editing! -- Sarah Manley Editing problems As you can see, I edited Medal and Generals. Once again, it logged me out. The only funny thing happening was that I hit preview and was having trouble with getting out of the preview mode. Maybe got logged out when I was trying to escape. The logout problem may be due to the Norton antivirus program, which is set to clean out all "threats" on an automatic basis. Their forum help seem to have mainly nonsensical solution, so I went back to ask staff about what was happening and to ask them to give me the title for the relevant cookie. I will check with my internet provider, who contracted with Norton, to find out how to set an exclusion for the relevant cookie. I knew that I did not have enough knowledge to do very much editing. I was caught wanting to give you some information and not knowing exactly how the template setup references or redirections to other places worked of if you really wanted work that way. The way that I did Generals was to place paragraphs describing everthing that were true for both programs and then paragraphs for each program. I tried to do this with the Medal description. I moved the description for how medals are generated up to the early part of description because that they are done in the same way in both programs. Since you were serious about making the paragraphs for the two programs particulars separately reachable, this was something you did not want. I don't understand why you want to do things that way, but I will leave existing articles alone from now on. I considered my work on testing on how the program works a done deal, but I can understand why you might be reluctant to accept that. I had some files that were set to win, changed the final turn to see the differences. With one I had I could allow the enemy Heavy Artillery to pound three Cossack, each with a number of pedals and all having the same amount of morale loss. I also ran the programs from the start to progress to a certain point and then to the next step(s) retrying different generals or no generals. I know how morale works. Both manuals have lots of mistakes and much of their strategy advice is flawed. David4k 20:13, May 19, 2012 (UTC) :Hey, David, you're a bit modest there. The material you added to the medal and General pages was great. My concern, as I'm sure I said, was with what you deleted, some of which (including a whole paragraph quoted from a manual and the introductory line that said where the remaining paragraph was quoted from) I then wanted to restore. :I do indeed want material that is common to both games to go into the introductory sections before the separate game notes. But where there is still quite a lot that is different, the overview page should then have fairly brief summaries with links to the separate articles. Maybe you could read through Template:Overview again to get a better feel for how the structure works. :Your understanding of morale and how the manuals are wrong about it is something I've not seen discussed in any other forum - and I think I've read most of what has been written about these games that's still on the Web! I don't doubt that you are right, and I'd love to see how you manage to measure morale. I hope you can expand on what you have said already, on the same pages. I guess it's time we had a new page for morale. :Please go on adding sentences and paragraphs to existing pages, but try not to delete anything: leave me to delete my work or merge it into yours, as appropriate, and to rearrange around the templates. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:20, May 20, 2012 (UTC) Morale and other things I do not have anything of much significance to add to my discussion of morale. The method that i used to verify my hypothesis was to save a file at a turn, set to use tactical map, and play out the turn looking at the results on the regiment status bar. The turn could, in some cases, be replaced some units or moving the troops in different ways. The unit status bars all have the same colors for each status(Imperialism2 user manual is wrong in describle the demoralized status as gray). The Imperialism status indicators are easier to read since the color are overlayed over 20 bars, while the Imperialism2 status indicators do not have bars. It has been a long time since I had used the User Manuals, so did not realize the many mistakes in then. The Imperialism User Manual states that morale is affected only by the General's medal. Since the Imperialism2 User Manual clearly started from a copy of the Imperialism User Manual, the tech writers had to made the specific change of adding morale to the text about the regiments. Playing on the tactical map is the way to understand more deeply how the game works. Even if you never play a game making your own tactical moves, you could watch how the AI defends/attacks and would understand better how you should construct your army. I have often wished that I could see the AI make ther moves for the naval battles, if I could improve my results with different ship combinations. I remember reading a player complaining about having to play using the stragegic battles for Imperialism2. He stated that he was used using Cossacks with some Artillery and had a force that he knows won have won a battle, but the AI retreated the Cossacks because it considered the force too weak to fight. The Cossack does not have very strong melee strength, but teamed up with some kind of artillery to punch a hole in the fortification, the Cossacks can easily charge and demoralize the emplaced artillery because its movement rate reaches the emplaced artillery with only two moves. My next task is to generate a work document to at least a basic military strategy guide for Imperialism(only). When I wrote a military guide back in 1998, I ended up breaking up the guide into two parts for strategic and tactical. Probably will stick mostly to the strategic, just a little bit of the tactical and leave the rest of the tactical for users to to find for themselves. I think that the economy section of the Imperialism game description should make reference to Town Development. I have a section on the Imperialism Forum call help forum called Help for a beginner which they needed to use to function on the Easy level. David4k 07:22, May 22, 2012 (UTC) :Looks like some good additions to articles in there! The long articles giving overviews of each game can certainly have more added to them, but might be better if more sections were turned into separate articles. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:39, May 22, 2012 (UTC) Well I see you finally found Coonwist. The tile with a port also needs a depot in order to collect anything from other depots connecting by rail-lines. David4k (talk) 03:21, September 20, 2014 (UTC)david4k Regarding your Coonwist-Transport network material, I was too brief. The picture shows red flags on the depots indicating that they are not working, you are only collecting from the area around the Port. Adding the depot on the same tile as the Port will be needed to turn all the depot flags to green for working. I interpeted the original poster to be playing at the Normal level because of his wording on distances involved. Also, playing at the Normal level, you get to place the Capital. I placed the Capital on the Orchard. This allows a start with food at 3/2/4, you will consume some Food until the first port is connected. So do not worry about the starting fruit problem. As was suggested by the original poster, ports in the two SE provinces are your best starting places, this will allow you access into timber, coal, iron, gold, wool and cotton in three provinces. The three neighboring Minor Nations are not very good mineral providers until you start devolping them. This tends to hurt your initial development. At least look for a promising fourth Minor Nation.David4k (talk) 16:39, September 20, 2014 (UTC) Imperialism 2 keys: listing Hello Robin I'm fairly new to wiki edits. I got more Imperialism 2 keys that I'll share. I also would suggest a different and better way of showing the keys, the way it is now it repeats the keys (in the beginning a big list and in the sub-menu for example (food / number of provinces / gems and diamonds), do you have an idea how to present the information in a clean way? ScaryDog (talk) 23:18, October 16, 2014 (UTC) :Well, we can present them in any number of ways. Alphabetical and subject-matter are two ways. Maybe combine them using a bigger table. I'll start work on that idea. Thanks for all the input. Incidentally, typing " " or " " on a page of this wiki will produce " ". -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:09, October 17, 2014 (UTC) Imperialism 2 keys - new One GP has MNs to itself Rharmells - England is the biggest country (8 provinces) in one island that has all other Minor powers, the other great powers are all in a second island ScaryDog (talk) 23:17, October 16, 2014 (UTC) :(Now that is fairly distinctive! -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:09, October 17, 2014 (UTC) ) Ten or more provinces *Swonddea - Yellow has 10 provinces, but low food (15 grain, 16 meat) *Kenonew - France has 11 provinces, Holland has 10 *Carthewys - Portugal has 10 provinces *Rhilly - France has 10 provinces (29 grain, 14 meat) *Arra - England has 11 provinces ScaryDog (talk) 23:17, October 16, 2014 (UTC) :Good! I'm adding those to the lists at Map key (Imp2). -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:09, October 17, 2014 (UTC) Imperialism 2 keys Hello Robin Glad you liked the seeds I found for Imperialism 2, because I'm bringing in more! I saw you are developing a table to list all the seeds with special colums like food and provinces, I like it! Instead of putting "Food Good" why not make a "Grain" colum that has the actual ammount of it and for the rest of materials, so we can order them with the sort function (the triangles), so if someone is looking for a country with many hard forest, he can find them by sorting that column. This will require many information per country per seed, or a way to select which country we are talking about in a seed... But if we are talking just one country per seed, let's say the best, we can put all that country starting information in the table of seeds. I know some seeds have a page where it states all the info about them, but in my opinion, people don't go over that much detail, they just want to know about the country they will play (usually the best one in that map, or the one with the interesting feature). Maybe a second table for balanced maps? Where you can pick more than one country in that map and still be enjoyable? So you liked that seed with England being the biggest and having all the minor powers to itself? Here is another version: Dath - England is not the biggest country (7 provinces) but is in one island that has all other Minor powers, while Sweden is the biggest country (9 provinces) but is in the second island with all the others great powers. Tedolly - the Blue power, Sweden has 9 provinces (light blue) and France has 8 provinces (deep blue), all other great powers only have 5 provinces. Ten or more provinces Corgidea - Spain has 10 provinces (25 grain, 18 open range) Dobamrys Rhay - France has 11 provinces, low food (16 grain, 8 open range) but you can place the capital in a good food area (north, with 2 rivers) that feeds 13 (14 max) Rhymnir - Sweden has 11 provinces (28 grain, 20 open range) Tantaunag - France has 11 provinces (23 grain, 16 open range) Abi - Portugal has 10 provinces (29 grain, 19 open range) Cerphagel - Portugal has 13 provinces (33 grain, 19 open range) ScaryDog (talk) 21:17, October 17, 2014 (UTC) :I've copied the above to the talk page of Map key (Imp2) because it's all about that. Continue discussion there, please! -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:57, October 18, 2014 (UTC) 1815 and Robin I have decided to narrow down my priorities. I have decided to do a one-man playtest for Robin (Imp1) on a world that appears to be outlier. I also am wanting to explore the ups and down of the No Consulate Strategy. With these tasks, I want the convenience of being able to use all of my save slots. Therefore, I am going to delete the four save files that I had for map key 1815. David4k (talk) 20:06, November 23, 2014 (UTC) :Sounds like a worthwhile project, but can't you just copy the 1815 files to a subfolder? My "Save" folder has dozens of subfolders. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 21:45, November 23, 2014 (UTC) I have created a new folder named 1815 with the four files. It has been so long that I thought that we were through with the subject. Concerning the topic of reporting on the map key. At first, I was thinking about how the tables would help me in discussing the subject of best methods of selecting where to place Consulates. I then saw an ambiguity in the words "trade policies". Looking at page 72 in the User Manual we see terms "using the center icons" and "trade policies". You might want to add those topics to the wiki. I then reached the viewpoint that filling in all those tables was not a good use of our labor. Users will get a much more clearer view by just looking at the Terrain Map for each country. I always write down the trade policies numbers for my selected Consulates, perhaps I should do the same thing for all of the Minor Nations. David4k (talk) 05:18, November 24, 2014 (UTC) :I don't expect to see all of the table cells filled, and I've changed the template wording to reflect that. Where I see value in filling cells is things like horses or grain (for invasion) or the tiles that Developers can make use of. For example, count and record the hardwood, wool, and cotton for any MN where you have a consulate so as to get a quick comparison when the Developer arrives and you want to decide which MN to start in; it could be a waste of $5,000 to build in the third-best MN before buying whatever's available in better ones. It is easier to count once then run your eye over a few columns than to go repeatedly clicking on the map to re-count. ---- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:33, November 26, 2014 (UTC) My very first spin for a country to use in the test of the No Consulates Strategy produced a map that had a country with two GP neighbors, as recommended. Picked the best of the three GPs and it look to be excellent from what I can see. Played up to Spring 1817 when I decided that this was not going to work well. I had bought some iron, but it would be a while before I would able to get to more hills. The five listed for coal likely are all steady sellers, the six iron listed may be mostly steady sellers. Two of the coal sellers have large amounts to sell and could provide, on random occasions, large amounts to be bought by other countries. Iron sellers have at most two iron, so there is less iron available for those countries that do not have a Consulate with the sellers. Having given up using Consulates, this would seem to not be a good way to play. So, I will instead use the method of buying materials and selling goods to another Great Power. I saved the file for Summer 1815 and will start by building in the same way for the turns that I did play. David4k (talk) 08:01, November 26, 2014 (UTC) :You say "buying materials and selling goods to another Great Power". GPs buy armaments occasionally but would be stupid to buy any other goods except food. Buying materials makes no economic sense unless the prices are crazy, which very seldom happens; I wouldn't do it except in rare situations, e.g. (1) extreme labor shortage and need for quick cash (and even then it might be better to offer resources - cut out the subsidy-ridden MN middle-men); (2) steel when I want to make armaments faster than my steel mill can produce steel. ---- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:52, November 26, 2014 (UTC) Buying materials I had seen the subject of buying materials rather than resources discussed in recent posts on zeta boards from earlier in 2014. My intension was to try that approach after trying out the method that still kept buying resources, so I am changing right away. Their posts very nicely and profusely explain their methods. The latest post ends with a comment saying "Definitely we should write a guide on the imperialism wikia or COG forum on this." I wonder if this was some rogue programmer offering this extra feature and this was unknown by Frog City at the time. David4k (talk) 08:01, November 26, 2014 (UTC) :My views on buying materials are probably covered in my previous note just above the heading. I think I saw the post you refer to and mentally dismissed it. I wholeheartedly agree with the "Definitely we should write a guide on the imperialism wikia ...". (I don't know what extra feature you are talking about. A quote from zetaboards or at least an URL would help.) ---- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:59, November 26, 2014 (UTC) You are correct, I had not started playing the new game at that time and was completely ignorant that I would be buying materials from a GP and selling goods to a MN. The "extra feature" comment was based on the same ignorance. I really like the map that I am playing, I have hand-written a full legal size page on turn one description of my thinking on how build the economy on this map key. After trying the buying materials method, I might want to come back and try playing using normal methods and make an effort to not use the extra information that I would have acquired in the previous try. This will give me a comparison with the methods. I will at some point start a map key description and possibly add any additional comments that seem appropriate.David4k (talk) 19:32, November 27, 2014 (UTC) :If you tell us the map key name I can create a page for it so that you can just paste your material in whenever you feel like it. Maybe a separate subpage for your pageful of theorizing, with the usual spoiler warning at the top. I hope you can manage a screenshot or two. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 22:34, November 27, 2014 (UTC) Hengtom (Imp1)/Red The map key is Hengtom. I will discuss only one country(Kem) and the analysis will only be based on what can be seen on Spring 1815. I will begin by explaining the strengths of what I see on the map. I will then start to describe the sequence of Engineer moves and builds of depots and ports and correlating that with the results from the Prospector. Keeping along that for a while, eventually I will discuss adding more Civilian Workers. Also, I will discuss keeping up the tempo of building their economy and how I keep track of the Industrialization results and why that is important. Sorry, forgot to sign that. David4k (talk) 23:10, November 28, 2014 (UTC) :Hengtom (Imp1)/Red awaits you! -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:21, November 29, 2014 (UTC) I quickly saw that Materials buying strategy was not going to work for me on a full-time basis. As you wrote, materials buying can occasionally be used for special situations, I might use that method. I alternated early between buying resources and buying materials. I even used some hybrid method such as two materials bids and two resource bids. On some turns, multiple countries were offering to sell materials. They should offer materials, it is a great deal for them. I see the reasoning for the strategy, but I also seeing several reasons where building Consulates does some things in a superior fashion. Most recently, I have played games at the Normal level, it is a comfortable level and the games are often fun. Also, by doing so, I have learned more about the game, mainly using diplomatic methods for winning elections. Part of that ability would be useless if I was playing at the Hard level. Before I got to this site, I started a few games at the Hard level and won them all. A ways back my usual practice was that if I had enjoyed the map key, I would then play it at the next harder level. At NOI, I could do pretty well unless I faced a severe money shortage due to their Consulates and subsidies overwhelming me. When I had a fighting chance, I usually got the first Colony on the map. Probably the AI works sequentially through bids as opposed to planning out the whole process. My mindset is now that having any significant prior knowledge makes the game play not a victory. Also, I see an attitude that the AI is so poor, that I should spend almost no notice of any danger from the AI. Back when I was starting to play the game at the Easy level, I learned that going to war against three or four AI opponents is not a good idea. I might be playing too cautiously now and while doing my promised play test games, I will have an opportunity to use the "save file and delete if unsuccessful method" to determine a better assessment for proper aggression levels. David4k (talk) 09:21, November 30, 2014 (UTC) I am no longer studying Hengtom and probably will never use the map key Hengtom again. Random map keys are a better venue for testing the value of a strategy. By the time that I gotten a ways into the test, my method was changing into "Eclectic Materials and Resource bidding with no initial Consulates, but with later possible Consulate builds Strategy". Thought that my effort to show my planning efforts might serve as a tutorial. I took a look at www.gog.com, that will be handy when my game playing stand-alone Window98 system dies. I was looking for the availability and price of Trade Empires, not easy to find. Also, I might want to download Imperialism and Colonization someday. That would make it possible to send you pictures. 17:20, December 1, 2014 (UTC) :(Been offline since Tuesday or would have replied sooner. Disappointing to stop my 46-day progress towards the "200 days" badge!) #Wasn't Hengtom random? #Great tutorial! #Can't you do screenshots with your old system? (No great loss if you can't; at least if you quote the map key someone else can reproduce the map here.) #My Trade Empires was free to download. A bit unstable, so maybe a GOG version would be better. #For Colonization, see the Civilization Games Wiki. :-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:14, December 6, 2014 (UTC) "Wasn't Hengtom random?" Yes it is a random map, but since I have played a bit on the map, I was remarking that I will not be using this particular map again, I do not want to play it again because I cannot chose Minor Nations with an unbiased viewpoint. "Can't you do screenshots with your old system?" Yes, but I have no way of conveying them. I am connecting to the Internet with a Windows7 system. My Windows98 system is connected neither to the Internet, nor to a printer. Still, I can put in either CDs or use programs that were previously downloaded. My Window98 system took a screenshot and produced a document file Deneb.bmp. The only way that I can send that document file would be to write a 1.44 MB "floppy" disk and mail it to you. It is extremely unlikely that you have the capability of reading such a file. I reminded myself that I have Pharaoh/Cleopatra to play, years have gone by since I played this game, have some preliminary plans and lines in sands for starting Dunqual Oasis which is about scenario 22 out of 50. Now that is a game that takes a lot of planning. Also, I have a CD for Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom, another game from the Impressions City Building series, that I have never yet have played.David4k (talk) 20:00, December 7, 2014 (UTC) I have more information on each of the individual Great Powers for Robin(Imp1). Did not know how to setup the subpages. I could list out explanations for each Great Power or I could wait to see if there any play questions. I was able to get a favorable setup for Twelt that allowed me to get to enjoy their three non-capitol provinces, so I had a win playing as purple.David4k (talk) 20:22, January 16, 2015 (UTC) Trade Empires Robin I am looking to add to the Trade Empires Wikia as I have kept copious game notes from all scenarios. My interest in the game led to the creation of a players guide as a pdf a few years ago. This had links and feedback over the years but now the pdf guide really doesnt have a home or has broken links. If there is a way to place the pdf and link it to the TE wikia I think it would continue to be a useful resource as the game is freeware now ,though I came to it through a store remainder bin but grew to really appreciate its micro elements and get past its obvious failings like the AI, especially its late game play and the bizarre randomness of the merchant guards and their encounters with bandits or pirates and the ransom, flee or plunder outcomes. Any way let me know the next step or if you want to quality assure the pdf let me know regards magpie1990 StephenMagpie1990 (talk) 00:09, June 27, 2016 (UTC) :PDF is a permitted file type we can upload - "Permitted file types: png, gif, jpg, jpeg, ico, pdf, svg, odt, ods, odp, odg, odc, odf, odi, odm, ogg, ogv, oga. ". Have a go? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:44, June 27, 2016 (UTC) Robin Thanks for setting the pdf for TE in a useful place. I wasnt sure where it ended up when I uploaded it. I do have it as aword doc in editable sections. So I could break it up into smaller bits for the a section on the TE wikia doing it as a longer beginning term project for myself to learn here. I have three things I'm going to add today which I can't presently see here on the TE wikia: 1. The actual Hot Keys short list developed for the game TE. I dont use them but some players like them and operate that way. 2.The full TE commodity list across all games,Amber to Zinc Ore, with the base price, where the resource is produced, input if any is required for productio and their game category [ food, medicine, military, luxury ] 3. The full transport chart, for both land and sea,including: mode, capacity, speed, path type, depot required and in game technological advance required Please look out for them and if I dont get them in the right place, your help is appreciated regards StephenMagpie1990 (talk) 23:17, June 27, 2016 (UTC) :Stephen, that all seems very good. :I think it would be best to have the Word document all on one page - Stephen's guide to Trade Empires - to start with. Then we can look at how it might be best divided into smaller pages, with a template for linking between them. :Your three other additions look great. You seem to be familiar with wikitables, and I'm impressed that you added them in VisualEditor. :-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 21:53, June 28, 2016 (UTC) Hi Robin :) Thanks for your message :) Been playing Imperialism and more especially Imperialism II on and off for almost 20 years now.Imperialism though wasnt keen on going up to Windows 7 though Imp 2 was playing quite happy still off the CD (probably though on its last legs lol),so acquired an updated version of both games from GOG earlier this year (along with 8 other games rofl) and been reaquainting myself since with these old favourites. I tend to trade as this is more difficult than just blasting your way across the map imo but obviously I can do a good old fashioned "fire and forget" game ;) I've map keys for both Imperialism games along with more details than has been posted by me on Trade today but I'll post these later when I've time. Map key I'm currently playing is "Relboshen" as the red country though I'm placed on the river,not where the computer player would start from.Try it out :) I see your in I believe New Zealand,I'm literally half the way around the world from you over in Scotland (though I'm actually English). Looking forwards to noting down more information on this particular wiki and I note that its been mentioned somewhere that the Imperialism Manual is tough to locate these days.I have a well used,though still in good condition,copy which maybe one day can be copied onto this wiki. Nice to meet you,and Happy Christmas :) Philip Terry (talk) 00:28, December 13, 2016 (UTC)